By the end of 2002, about 600,000 visitors​—many young people among them—​had seen the traveling exhibition about the persecution of the prisoners with the purple triangle and others of Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Third Reich. The exhibition was staged at memorial museums of former concentration camps, such as Mauthausen, Moringen, Neuengamme, Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen, and Bergen-Belsen, as well as in adult-education centers and other educational institutions. This effort was important and instrumental in saving these “forgotten victims,” as German historians call them, from oblivion. What further benefit comes from the presentation of such an exhibition to the public?

On January 27, 1998, the annual commemoration day for the victims of National Socialism, the Memorial Museum at Sachsenhausen camp dedicated the day to victims who were Jehovah’s Witnesses. Speaking at this occasion, Steffen Reiche, Minister of Culture and Science in Brandenburg, stated: “The behavior of Jehovah’s Witnesses in the camps and prisons embodies virtues which, today and in the past, are essential to the continued existence of a democratic constitutional state founded on the rule of law: namely their firm stand against the SS and the consideration toward their fellow inmates. Given the increasing brutality toward aliens and towards persons having a different political or philosophical outlook, these virtues are a must for every citizen in our country.”

This comment emphasizes the fact that exhibitions of this kind do far more than just inform about the facts of the bitter persecution of a religious minority under the Nazi regime. It also shows the value and necessity of documenting the past.

When the exhibition was staged in Hamburg in October 1997, a renowned weekly commented: “It achieves what such exhibitions should always aim for: Out of the plain statistics of harassed people, of persons fired from their jobs, of inmates, of people tortured and murdered, it draws attention to the ordeals of individuals.”​—Die Zeit, October 10, 1997, p. 24.

At the opening of the exhibition sponsored by the State Center for Political Education of Lower Saxony at the Memorial site of the Bergen-Belsen camp, one speaker said: “All persons depicted can only be mentioned on behalf of the many who were persecuted, imprisoned, and tormented because they firmly held to their religious convictions and did not adapt to the National Socialist surroundings. They are no remote and untouchable heroes but ordinary people, mortal like everybody else, who followed their conscience, stood up boldly for their convictions, and hence became good examples for our everyday life.”​—Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung, April 20, 1998, p. 4.

Three sets of this exhibition exist with about 50 panels each, and they can be shown publicly under the following titles: “Jehovah’s Witnesses Stand Firm Against Nazi Assault” (as an accompanying exhibition for the public presentation of the video documentary with the same title, produced by the Watch Tower Society, or with other films about this topic produced by non-Witnesses); “Forgotten Victims” (so far historians have been referring to Jehovah’s Witnesses as “forgotten victims of the Nazi regime”); and “Spiritual Resistance Out of Christian Conviction” (as was done as an accompanying exhibition of scientific forums with the same titles in Wewelsburg, Hamburg, and Frankfurt am Main in October 1997).

The basic idea for the exhibition’s panels stems from the French exhibition of the Cercle européen des Témoins de Jéhovah anciens déportés et internés (European Society of Jehovah’s Witnesses Former Concentration Camp Inmates), founded in Paris in 1990. However, the contents of the German panels have been revised and expanded. On November 6, 1996, the exhibition was displayed at the world premiere of the German video documentary Jehovah’s Witnesses Stand Firm Against Nazi Assault at the Ravensbrück Camp Memorial Museum. The former Minister-President of the State of Brandenburg/​Potsdam wrote for that occasion: “Your film screening is an important step toward informing the public about the role your religious association played under the Nazi regime.”

Some 400 of the 567 presentations included a traveling exhibition about the forgotten victims. On January 23, 1998, at the opening of the exhibition in  Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt, Siegfried Schiele, director of the State Center for Political Education of Baden-Württemberg, stated: “All who resisted the Nazi regime​—for whatever motive—​deserve deep appreciation. And an important group among them are Jehovah’s Witnesses to whom we owe respect, respect which was somehow underexposed for a long time. Therefore, I am happy about this exhibition that can help compensate deficiencies. I was already able to get a first positive impression when touring the exhibition. I can also highly recommend the video documentary that I have already seen. History cannot be a quarry from which we pick whatever suits us. Jehovah’s Witnesses have a definite and exemplary place in the chapter that otherwise is the saddest chapter of our history.”

As the need arose, the Watchtower Society in Germany produced additional panels, with references to the locality of the exhibition, for example, for the city of Stuttgart and for the Bautzen Memorial Museum. (Some memorial museums received extra panels on permanent loan.) The panels were also copied in full size for the premiere of the Russian Stand Firm version, held on May 15, 1997, at the World Trade Center in Moscow, as well as for the premiere in Austria and the special exhibition “The Forgotten Victims,” on June 18, 1997, at the Mauthausen Camp Memorial Museum. The branch offices of the Watch Tower Society in Sweden, Denmark, and Norway made electronic copies of some exhibition panels and presented them at the Nordisk Museum in the center of Stockholm on January 14, 1998, and in Copenhagen on March 30, 1998. In these countries, the panels were used and shown as a traveling exhibition in various cities.

This brochure only presents a selection of pictures and documents from the 50 three-dimensional panels. However, a new collection of panels has been selected to be computerized and offered free of charge as a valuable set of computer print-outs for public presentations and classroom use.

We desire this exhibition to continue contributing to the formation of unbiased opinions on the part of all citizens.